15 Things You Didn't Know About NIKE

Fifteen things you didn't know about Nike.

Welcome to a Lux Calm, the place where future billionaires come to get inspired. Hello, Aluxers, and welcome to another exciting original video presented by Alux.com. Nike is one of the world's top producers of sports footwear, apparel, equipment, and accessories, valued around sixteen billion dollars. Nike is the undisputed most valuable sports brand in the world. In 1964, the company was founded by University of Oregon track athletes Bill Knight and his coach, Bill Bowerman, who wanted to make better running shoes. Their first retail location was opened in 1966 in Santa Monica, California. The Nike name was established, and the Swoosh symbol was first used in 1971, although it wouldn't be trademarked and patented until 1974. By 1980, Nike had rapidly expanded to capture 50% of the U.S. athletic shoe market. The company went public that year and continued its upward climb to becoming a sports apparel mega brand. Nike currently has over 44,000 employees worldwide, sells in 160 world countries, and is the number one sports brand, claiming approximately 62 percent of the global sports footwear market. They have sponsored a number of top athletes, most notably Michael Jordan, and have collaborated with some of the big-name celebrities like Kanye West and Drake. If you are new here, welcome! Be sure to subscribe and follow us on Instagram at Alux.

Okay, that's enough background; it's time to look at the 15 things you didn't know about Nike.

Number one: They sell an average of 25 sneakers per second. Based on 2016 numbers, the Nike brand makes seven hundred million dollars per week, 100 million per day, four million per hour, sixty-six thousand per minute, and one thousand per second, which equals out to about 25 pairs of sneakers sold every second.

Number two: The designer of the Nike logo was initially paid $35. The Nike Swoosh is a trademark that was created by Carolyn Davidson in 1971 when she was a student at Portland State University. Phil Knight's initial reaction to the logo was reportedly, "I don't like it, but maybe it'll grow on me." She was paid $35 for her design then, but in 1983, at a party in her honor, she was given a gold diamond ring in the shape of the Swoosh and 500 shares of Nike stock, which were worth only about 150 dollars then but at one time were worth close to $700,000.

Number three: Nike's largest store is in New York City. Nike opened a five-story, state-of-the-art retail store in the Soho area of New York City in 2016. At 55,000 square feet, it is Nike's largest store. The building, called Nike Town New York, is made with floor-to-ceiling glass windows. The first floor is focused on women's running, where you can test out the sneakers on a treadmill that emulates a variety of different environments. The top floor features a half-court basketball area for testing basketball sneakers, and there's also a mini soccer field on the third floor if you want to try out a pair of cleats. Another floor features a 50-foot wide wall of sneakers and an Air Force One customization bar. The experience is also fully digital, with the Nike Plus app tracking your progress through the store, and Nike experts are available for video conferences.

Number four: Nike was founded under a different name. The Nike company was originally founded as Blue Ribbon Sports in 1964 and didn't officially become Nike, Inc. until May 30th, 1971. The company was named after the Greek goddess of victory, but co-founder Phil Knight says he had a very different idea for the name. Originally, he wanted to go with the name Dimension 6, explaining that he wanted to go even beyond the fifth dimension; however, he couldn't get everyone else onboard with that name.

Number five: Drake owns a two million dollar pair of solid gold Nikes. When Drake collaborated with Nike to create the OVO Air Jordan 10s and 12s, the shoes immediately became a must-have for high-end shoe collectors. Drake gave away a pair of both shoes at a Toronto Raptors game, and the fans quickly posted the shoes on eBay. The 10s were sold for around $20,000, and the 12s went for around $100,000. This is nothing compared to the special pair that Drake had made for himself. Drake commissioned artist Matthew Senna to create a pair of solid gold 12s, with each unwearable shoe weighing 50 pounds. They are valued at two million dollars.

Number six: Nike was sued for using the Beatles song "Revolution" in a commercial. For one year's use of the Beatles song "Revolution," Nike paid two hundred fifty thousand dollars to Capitol Records, which holds the North American licensing rights for the Beatles songs, and two hundred fifty thousand dollars to Michael Jackson, who acquired the Beatles publishing rights in 1985. They used the song in a 1987 commercial. The three surviving Beatles were upset that the song was being used for an advertisement, which had not happened with any of their other songs to that point. George Harrison said, "Every Beatles song ever recorded is going to be advertising women's underwear and sausages; we've got to put a stop to it." In order to set a precedent, they sued Nike and Capitol Records for 15 million dollars through their recording company, Apple Records. The suit was settled out of court, but Yoko Ono expressed her strong support for using the Beatles music in advertising, saying that it brought their music to a new generation.

Number seven: Their first running shoes were made with a waffle iron. Bill Bowerman, as a track and field coach, was having waffles for breakfast when he realized that the grooves in the waffle iron would make an excellent mold for a running shoe with increased traction. He immediately got up from the table and gathered the materials to make a prototype, which would eventually become Nike's first shoe, called the Waffle Trainer, which debuted in 1974.

Number eight: Nike has won two Emmy Awards. Nike has won two Emmy Awards for Best Commercial. The first was won for a 1999 Spike Jonze commercial entitled "The Morning After," which showed a runner taking a jog on January 1st, 2000, in the midst of a society collapsing due to Y2K. The second Emmy was won in 2008 for an ad titled "Move" that featured various athletes for a wide range of sports with no words spoken throughout the entire 90-second ad.

Number nine: Nike recycles old shoes into playgrounds and sports tracks. Since the 1990s, Nike has been actively looking for ways to lessen their impact on the environment. One of their initiatives is their "Reuse-a-Shoe" program, through which they collect worn-out athletic shoes and transform them into what they call "Nike Grind." The Grind is used in building playgrounds, sports tracks, and certain Nike products; over 28 million shoes have been recycled to date.

Number ten: The Nike Air Yeezy 1 Grammy prototype Kanye wore sold for seventy-five thousand dollars. The Nike Air Yeezy 1 was introduced to the world for the first time when Kanye West performed in them at the 2008 Grammys. The exact pair of Nikes Kanye wore during the performance was sold for $75,000, and other Nike Air Yeezy 1 Grammy prototypes sell for fifty thousand dollars. For some more interesting info on Kanye, click in the top right-hand corner to watch our video of 15 things you didn't know about Kanye West.

Number eleven: The Nike founder hated the idea of the LIVESTRONG bracelet. Nike started collaborating with Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG foundation in 2008, creating a line of Nike LIVESTRONG products. One of the most recognizable products from this collaboration is the yellow LIVESTRONG rubber wristband, and more than 87 million have been sold to date. However, Phil Knight admitted on The Oprah Winfrey Show that he thought the bracelet was one of the dumbest ideas he'd ever heard. They discontinued their association with the LIVESTRONG brand in 2013.

Number twelve: Nike owns Converse and Hurley. Over the years, Nike has acquired several other successful brands. Their first acquisition was an upscale shoe brand called Cole Haan in 1988. Later, they purchased Bauer Hockey in 1994 and Hurley International in 2002. In 2003, they made their largest acquisition, purchasing the Converse brand for 309 million dollars. They also purchased Umbro in 2008 but sold it in 2012 and sold Cole Haan in 2013.

Number thirteen: Michael Jordan did not want to wear the Air Jordan 1 at first. Michael was not happy when he saw the Air Jordan 1s for the first time. He didn't want to wear the shoes because he said they were made with the devil's colors: the colors of his college rival, North Carolina State, which were black and red.

Number fourteen: The Nike slogan "Just Do It" was inspired by the last words of a death row inmate. Dan Wheeldon, the creators of "Just Do It," said his inspiration came from death row inmate Gary Gilmore's last words, which were, "Let's do this." Gilmore was executed by a firing squad in 1977 after being convicted of two murders in Utah.

Number fifteen: Over one hundred thousand pairs of Nikes have been lost at sea. In May of 1990, a North Pacific storm resulted in ninety containers being tossed into the sea from a freighter ship. The total amount of shoes lost was approximately eighty thousand. Another thirty-three thousand shoes were lost in the Pacific Ocean in 2002, and another thousand have been lost in the ocean over the years. The interesting thing is that when the shoes started washing up on Alaskan shores, they were all still in wearable condition. The only problem was that the shoes weren't matched, so you might be waiting on shore a long time for a left or a right in your size to wash up. The good news is that the shoes remain wearable even after up to ten years in the ocean.

Now that you've learned more about Nike, do you think they are the best shoe brand in the world? If not, who is better? Let us know what you think in the comments. Thanks for sticking around until the end, dedicated Aluxer.

Here's a bonus fact just for you: When twenty-year-old Shaq was expected to be the top pick in the NBA Draft, he was courted by both Nike and Reebok. Shaq made his choice clear when he showed up for a meeting with Phil Knight dressed in head-to-toe Reebok gear. Knight reportedly never quite forgave Shaq for that one.

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